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Pilgrims: A Love Story
Jude Law and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, lovers, sensei and protege, take a road trip across the American West. Seriously.
- GenresPoetry
25 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2010
8 people want to read
About the author
T.J. Beitelman
10 books34 followersTJ Beitelman is the author of a novel, John the Revelator, a collection of short stories, Communion, and three poetry collections, This Is the Story of His Life, Americana, and In Order to Form a More Perfect Union, all published by Black Lawrence Press. His hybrid memoir, Self-Helpless: A Misfit's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, is available through Outpost 19. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Posit, DIAGRAM, Blackbird, Quarterly West, New Orleans Review, and other places, and he's received artist's fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where he directs the Creative Writing program at the Alabama School of Fine Arts.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 11, 2010
Top 5 Facts About Pilgrims: A Love Story:
1) It won the Spring, 2008 Black River Chapbook Competition
2) It requires a legal disclaimer: Jude Law is not really Jude Law. Same goes for Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
3) "It's fakery and magic tricks, yes," says the author. "Misdirection. Diversions. Facades. But, disclaimers aside, these poems happened. To me."
4) There are signposts to help you guide the way: “You Are Here”.
5) ...but it is the result of a crazy premise, followed poem to poem down a tangled knot of rabbit holes.
Jude Law and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "dusty and dry and alone," "their minds a certain kind of wild," light out for the territories in a red Edsel, in search of something, but find nothing, and so realize their only recourse is to "make a something of a nothing," specifically a something which can accommodate Las Vegas, candle tricks, Emily Dickinson, and a ghost town "shrine of We-Don't-Know." Beitelman takes us on a pilgrimage both sensual and metaphysical, both comic and tragic, warning us against "shimmer, shine, and show" while delivering bushels of each. -- Joel Brouwer, author of And So
Beitelman’s voice is sure as we navigate a roadmap between oasis and urban beehive, clarifications on loneliness, aloneness, and solitude. The “pilgrims” in this sequence desire a fresh authenticity (of self and in relationship), but are finally left only to stare: “…There’s no one left but / You to watch You now” amid the “shimmer, shine, and show.” Mirrors. A disorienting existential pose surrounded by street-talk of the street-smart. Pilgrims: A Love Story draws the reader to the tough and simple sheen of language, and to its ever-questioning narrative. The old tale of “wait and see” echoing once more. -- Katherine Soniat, author of A Shared Life
T.J. Beitelman’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in literary magazines all across this great land. He has received fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham, and he's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published two chapbooks: Pilgrims: A Love Story, which won Black Lawrence's Black River Chapbook Contest, and 13 Curses and Other Love Poems, which won the Dream Horse Press Chapbook Contest. He teaches writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and blogs on arts, culture, and the American way at www.beitelblog.blogspot.com. His full-length collection In Order to Form a More Perfect Union will be published by Black Lawrence Press in 2012.
1) It won the Spring, 2008 Black River Chapbook Competition
2) It requires a legal disclaimer: Jude Law is not really Jude Law. Same goes for Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
3) "It's fakery and magic tricks, yes," says the author. "Misdirection. Diversions. Facades. But, disclaimers aside, these poems happened. To me."
4) There are signposts to help you guide the way: “You Are Here”.
5) ...but it is the result of a crazy premise, followed poem to poem down a tangled knot of rabbit holes.
Jude Law and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "dusty and dry and alone," "their minds a certain kind of wild," light out for the territories in a red Edsel, in search of something, but find nothing, and so realize their only recourse is to "make a something of a nothing," specifically a something which can accommodate Las Vegas, candle tricks, Emily Dickinson, and a ghost town "shrine of We-Don't-Know." Beitelman takes us on a pilgrimage both sensual and metaphysical, both comic and tragic, warning us against "shimmer, shine, and show" while delivering bushels of each. -- Joel Brouwer, author of And So
Beitelman’s voice is sure as we navigate a roadmap between oasis and urban beehive, clarifications on loneliness, aloneness, and solitude. The “pilgrims” in this sequence desire a fresh authenticity (of self and in relationship), but are finally left only to stare: “…There’s no one left but / You to watch You now” amid the “shimmer, shine, and show.” Mirrors. A disorienting existential pose surrounded by street-talk of the street-smart. Pilgrims: A Love Story draws the reader to the tough and simple sheen of language, and to its ever-questioning narrative. The old tale of “wait and see” echoing once more. -- Katherine Soniat, author of A Shared Life
T.J. Beitelman’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in literary magazines all across this great land. He has received fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham, and he's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published two chapbooks: Pilgrims: A Love Story, which won Black Lawrence's Black River Chapbook Contest, and 13 Curses and Other Love Poems, which won the Dream Horse Press Chapbook Contest. He teaches writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and blogs on arts, culture, and the American way at www.beitelblog.blogspot.com. His full-length collection In Order to Form a More Perfect Union will be published by Black Lawrence Press in 2012.
Displaying 1 of 1 review